Screw it.
I called Buzz and asked him to run the license plate the crazy ex-cop had volunteered. Buzz gave me grief about the illegalities of accessing official government records for unofficial purposes, and how I already owed him big-time for all the many other favors he’d done for me, then said it would probably take a few minutes to get back with the information I wanted. He was in the doctor’s office, he said.
“Nothing serious, I hope.”
“Hemorrhoids are flaring up. Plus, I’m out of Viagra.”
“Too much information, Buzz.”
“You ever wonder why they call it an asteroid when it’s outside the atmosphere, but they call it a hemorrhoid when it’s inside your ass?”
“Gotta run, Buzz,” I said and signed off.
“One of your marketing contacts,” Savannah said sarcastically.
“A buddy.”
“Why can’t you just tell me the truth, Logan?”
“That is the truth.”
She shook her head, aggravated with me per usual, and turned on news radio. The fire she’d smelled was burning in the mountains northwest of Los Angeles. Nearly twenty structures were already burned, and hundreds more threatened. Evacuations were being ordered. Water-bombing helicopters and a DC-10 carrying 12,000 gallons of retardant had been called in to stop the advancing flames. Much depended on the winds, and the winds weren’t cooperating. I ached for those who’d lost their homes, and those who soon would. I knew the feeling.
“People just don’t call up a ‘buddy’ and get confidential DMV records,” Savannah said.
“It’s a good buddy.”
“It’s the CIA. That’s who you and Arlo used to work for, isn’t it?”
“You know, Savannah, you could continue busting my huevos, or we could go get a drink and wait until my good buddy gets back to me with the information I requested.”
Savannah thought about it for a minute. “I’d prefer busting your huevos.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
Jingle’s Happy Place was anything but. Just another dive watering hole on Lankershim Boulevard, across the street from an empty used-car dealership gone bust. A big screen plasma was tuned to Sports Center. A hockey game was on. The Fun Room regulars, a handful of aging bikers and what looked to be blue collar retirees on fixed incomes, paid little attention to the television, preoccupied as they were with getting hammered on long-necked Buds and shots of tequila. They nudged each other and checked out Savannah as she walked in. We laid claim to two stools near the door.
The bartender was bald, with a wife beater T-shirt that afforded an unobstructed view of his heavily tattooed arms and neck — a multicolored kaleidoscope of hobbits, skulls and dragons. Five gold loops dangled from each of his earlobes. He tossed down a couple of cocktail napkins and stared in sullen silence at us, waiting. I ordered club soda with a lemon twist. Savannah went with a glass of Chardonnay.
“Something dry,” she said.
The barkeep stalked off to get our drinks without a word.
“I just realized something,” she said. “I don’t even know what your favorite season is.”
I looked over at her.
“I’m serious. We were married for how long? That’s how private you were, Logan. Always distracted, rarely engaged — except when we were in bed. And every year, it just got worse.”
“You should’ve said something.”
“Are you kidding? I said everything I could think of. Over and over. You just never heard me.”
A covert life is lived in boxes. Marriage and family are locked in one box; career in another. The arrangement isn’t for everyone. Every member of Alpha had been divorced at least once. Perhaps if I’d had it to do all over again, I might have gone a different route. Left the Air Force and gone to work for the airlines. Moved Savannah to the suburbs and started a family. Shared a life together. A real life. But that was the past. A Buddhist doesn’t dwell on the past. He concentrates on the present.
“Fall,” I said.
She looked over at me.
“My favorite season.”
“I would’ve guessed summer,” Savannah said. She got up to go to the ladies room.
“You coming back this time?”
“There’s a possibility.”
I smiled.
The regulars ogled her as she walked.
Our drinks arrived. There was no lemon twist in my club soda, but I let it slide. You pick your battles. My phone rang. Caller ID indicated it was Buzz.
“That was quick.”
“How long does it take to go rooting around somebody’s anus and write a prescription?” Buzz said. “The guy tells me I need more fiber. More fiber? Talk to my wife. I’m already tooting like a foghorn.”
“You run that plate?”
“No. I’m calling because I went to the doctor and now I’m conflicted about my sexual orientation and need some advice from somebody who’s been there. Even though I now realize that there’s no gift certificate in it for me to my favorite restaurant, yes, Logan, I ran your license plate. Because I love you, man.”
“Maybe you are conflicted, Buzz.”
“You ready to copy, wise guy?”
“Go.”
“The plate belongs to a 2007 white Honda coupe. Registered to an address on Sea View Lane in the Mount Washington area of Los Angeles.”
“Who’s it registered to?”
“The owner of record: Richard no middle initial Smith.”
My mouth went dry, the same way it used to just before I pickled a bomb or pulled the trigger on a target. Richard Smith. The same name on the stolen American Express card used to buy the Sawzall at the Home Depot in Phoenix.
Being the pro that he is, Buzz had gone one step further, looking up Smith’s driver’s license description: five-feet-eight and 178 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was sixty-one years of age, considerably older than any suspects that witnesses to Echevarria’s murder had described to police. He didn’t match the description of the suspect that Abnorman Buckhalter said he’d seen fleeing the house where Ortiz, the math teacher, was killed, nor did he resemble the man I’d seen on the Home Depot surveillance tape, exchanging heated words with Robbie Emerson before buying a power saw.
“What’s the deal with the Honda?” Buzz wanted to know.
“The week before Echevarria got hit, there was another shooting, same address, one street over. Retired schoolteacher. A witness said he saw the shooter drive off in a Honda with that license plate. Richard Smith also reported his credit card stolen. That card was used to buy a power saw in Phoenix that might be connected to another murder linked to Echevarria’s.”
“You’re thinking this guy Smith with the Honda took out the teacher and Echevarria?”
“That’s the thing. Smith doesn’t match up. Witnesses described a different shooter. I’m wondering if somebody else might’ve been driving his car.”
“The same somebody else who was using Smith’s allegedly stolen credit card,” Buzz said.
“Read my mind.”
“So why don’t you go ask him.”
“Maybe I might just do that.”
“Good. That way, you can stop demanding favors from me every twenty seconds. You’re worse than my kids. At least they remember me on Father’s Day. You, I get nothing from but empty promises.”
Savannah returned from the ladies room, drawing another round of lustful glances from the regulars.
“Hold the fort,” Buzz said, “did you say power saw? What’s up with that?”